Defective
by triojediknights
Summary: Hi everyone! Long time! Here is the start to a story I wrote about Katniss having a romance with the eldest Mellark brother. I thought I would do a piece about that, after how much everyone liked my one about Katniss and Rye. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1: Don't Know Enough About Girls

**Chapter 1: Don't Know Enough About Girls**

I adjust the one strap on my faded blue Reaping dress as I stride into the Hob. Ordinarily, I don't visit the black market of District 12 twice in one day, - I already completed my hunting trades this morning - but Mother had some Healing medicines that she was hoping to barter. I offered to take them into town for her. Selling them shouldn't be hard - being the Victor of the 74th and 75th Hunger Games and third Victor overall for my District, people tend to follow my economic transactions, as well as other transactions, wherever I go.

As I make a sale with Greasy Sae, who is one of my best customers for game, a tall man of 21 with ashy blonde hair approaches the stall.

"Morning, Katniss."

I smile up at the new arrival. "Morning, Leven."

Leven Mellark is the eldest of three brothers, the son of the Baker. I first met him when I began trading game at the back loading dock of the Bakery. His father has developed something of a guilty pleasure for my squirrels. Leven praises how I shoot them in the eye, every single time, without fail. He is also the one who is able to help me get away with the trading on the sly, without his mother, the Baker's wife, catching me. His mother is rumored to be a witch of a woman who might even beat her own sons. I have never seen any bruises on Leven, though. He is too strong. But even if the rumors had any merit to them, I would know better than to ask him. And I certainly would not ask either of his younger brothers - Rye, the middle son, is generally a cut-up and jokester. Peeta, the youngest, is very shy; he has hardly ever spoken more than a few words to me.

Leven now hands me a paper bag, all wrapped up at the top. "I thought I might find you here. And it's lucky I did. I baked these fresh today, and Peeta helped with the frosting. For Prim. It's her birthday today, isn't it?"

I blink, surprised that he even remembered. Then, I grant him with one of my rare smiles. "Thank you, Leven. That was very thoughtful."

We are soon joined by a handsome man, about Leven's age, with flaming red hair and the white plating of a Peacekeeper's uniform across his chest. Darius is one of the nicer Peacekeepers in this district, thriving in the black market environment when he should normally be doing his job and tearing the place apart for contraband. He is also renowned as a bit of a flirt with the women - old, young, it doesn't really matter to him. Unfortunately, I am one of his favorite targets.

"Hello, Katniss," he beams.

I nod to him. "Hello, Darius."

He cocks his head at me curiously. "I thought I already saw you here this morning."

"I was, but Mother asked me to trade these medicines for her."

Darius pokes his nose into my satchel. "What luck! One of the boys back at the Barracks has been hit with a high fever. Mind if I take this ointment back to him?"

"Sure," I shrug. "What can you trade for it?"

"How about a nice kiss from yours truly?" and Darius leans his face real close. Behind me, I hear Leven make some kind of strangled noise in the back of his throat. I, however, am unfazed. Darius has been asking me for a kiss as trade payment since I hit puberty. Laughing, I push him away.

"I thought you Peacekeepers had money."

"We're more destitute than you think, Ms. Everdeen," Darius mock-pouts, not one to give up on stealing a kiss so easily.

Surprisingly, I find myself thinking about the trade. It would lose me a coin or two, but fever ointment is one of the least-expensive products anyway. With how long the winters are here in Twelve, running up a fever can be pretty rare, and would actually be a welcome contrast to the cold. And I have plenty of other medicines to barter before the day is out. Reading my silence, Leven jumps right to the point.

"You're not seriously thinking of saying Yes, are you, Katniss?" he hisses to me, but not quietly enough so that Darius doesn't hear. "He's a Peacekeeper! You know how fresh they get. You don't want to lead him on. And anyways, you're not the type!"

His comment oddly rubs me the wrong way. I should remember that he's just trying to protect me. And I am well aware of Peacekeepers even fresher than Darius having their ways with women. But I survived the Hunger Games - twice! I can take care of myself.

"Well, then, I guess you don't know much about girls," I snap prissily, and grabbing Darius by the neck, I yank him down to me and crash my lips against his.

Darius is not a bad kisser. He's quite good, actually, and I find his navigation across my lips admirable, considering this is my first kiss and I have no idea what I'm doing. As I try to seal my lips around his without slobbering all over him, I open my mouth to Darius and he slips his tongue down my throat before I can make a sound. It plays with mine inside my maw, and I find my face growing hot. Taking him by the shoulders, I finally push him away after a minute.

Wiping a hand across my lips, I turn and stride over to the next stall. I can hear Leven's footfalls following after me, and casting a glance over my shoulder, I am quite satisfied to see that he has been rendered speechless and is in disbelief.

"You have no idea what you've wrought. He's gonna be pounding on your door every night before you can say, 'The Capitol'! That better not have been your first kiss, Katniss Everdeen! And what a waste if it was!"

I round on him. "Like you could have done any better!"

Leven's eyes narrow, and for one mad second, I think he's actually going to yank me into his arms and kiss me good and proper, when suddenly Thom - the Miner Foreman - comes hollering into the Hob.

"Fire! Fire! Fire at the Bakery!"

Leven's face goes ghostly white. Glancing at each other, he and I rush out of the Hob and across town, to see that yes, the Bakery is indeed in flames. The fire has progressed too quickly; the building can't be saved. Leven begins circling the premises as close as he dares in a blind panic, screaming for his family: "Mom! Pop! Rye! Peeta!"

It is scarcely an hour later when the bakery has burnt to the ground, and a Peacekeeper approaches Leven with the terrible news: his family's remains were found in the ashes. I watch as the eldest Mellark son and sole survivor of his family collapses to the ground in sobs.


	2. Chapter 2: Tell Me Now Before You Regret

**Chapter 2: Tell Me Now Before You Regret It**

Leven comes to visit my Mother quite often in the weeks following his family's deaths. In addition to being a Healer, my mother also provides healing of the mind in the form of grief counseling. As Prim and I help around the house, I watch Leven try and fail to get past his grief. He looks so broken, and the kind light in his eyes has faded, if not entirely been extinguished.

Finally, one day, as I am helping him with his coat after yet another appointment with my mother, he finally explodes.

"I can't do this anymore! I'm getting out, Katniss! The Capitol has placed a call out for Merchants to come work there."

I blink in shock. District citizens are only allowed to travel between districts or to the Capitol if you are a tribute of the Hunger Games, a Victor like me, or if you receive a special visa to move to the Capitol as a business owner. Even so, for Leven to leave his only home seems like a drastic decision and terribly unlike him. "Leven, don't say things like that! You know we would all miss you."

"I'm beating this racket, Katniss! I can't live like this anymore. I have a ticket for the late-night train tonight."

I bite the inside of my cheek slightly, knowing there is nothing I can say to make him change his mind. "Can I come and see you off?"

He nods once.

* * *

It is late at night. Leven and I are standing alone on the District 12 train platform. The locomotive has arrived and is just going over some routine checks before calling on passengers to board. I am wearing my blue Reaping dress. Leven is clad in a nice outfit and an overcoat.

"Twelve's going to seem so small and boring with you gone," I admit.

Leven nods. "I will miss you, Katniss."

"I'll come visit you when I come up for the Games every summer," I promise.

Leven stares at me hard, his eyes forlorn. "If I was given reason enough to stay..."

I gawk at him. "Of course you have reason to stay! You..." But then I pause as I go back over his words. _Given_ reason enough to stay...

It is like puzzle pieces, once thought to be disparate, tumble into my head in an organized fashion. Leven giving me the cookies for Prim's birthday. Leven always helping me make those trades with his father while avoiding his mother. Leven, appearing so uncomfortable when I kissed that Peacekeeper Darius on a whim. Had he been... jealous? And was all that... no, it couldn't be!

Nevertheless, I feel the need to find out. Just to clear the air. I gently take Leven's hand. "Leven... if there's something you need to tell me... tell me now before you regret it."

Leven holds my gaze, and I can see only sadness and forlornness in his eyes. I hold my breath, waiting for him to say what I suspect he has wanted to say to me for quite some time. At last, I hear the Conductor call, "All aboard!" I begin to turn away.

And that's when it happens.

Leven suddenly grabs me by the shoulders and smashes his lips into mine. I press my hands into his chest, but instead of pushing him away, I fist the skin there and hold fast. My eyes slam shut and I dare to let out a moan, allowing Leven's tongue to invade my mouth. I kiss him back. "Hmmm..."

Leven's hands wander down from my shoulders and sweep across my back. Then they grope even further southward. He audaciously feels me up through my blue dress, cupping the flesh of my ass. Gallingly, and in perfect harmony, I raise my leg to his waist, hitching it around his torso. The steam from the locomotive swirls around us. Far, far away, I can hear the train whistle blow, but Leven and I pay it no mind, continuing to furiously kiss. At last, Leven's lips spring from mine, mouthing down my neck as I finally am given air with which to speak and even breathe.

"The... the train!"

"Let it go," Leven hisses into my neck, his breath hot on my skin. "I'm staying."

I sigh and clasp him closer as he continues to attack my neck with his mouth, working his way down my collarbone and towards my breasts. "I knew you would."

Leven all at once halts his physical worship of me. His eyes now lock onto mine, and I can see that they are black and dark with lust. "I have... loved you since the moment we first met. Will you marry me?"

I bite my flushed and kissed lips in thought. I have never had a desire to marry anybody, seeing how my parents' marriage brought such scandal upon the district and how my father's death nearly destroyed my mother emotionally. And I have never been very keen on romance anyhow. To top it all off, being a Victor is a very stressful occupation, and most of my brethren have never married, and for good reason - self-preservation. To prevent the Capitol from using your loved ones as leverage. A part of me doesn't want Leven to be involved with me, and thus involved with such a dangerous life. Such a dangerous and compromised spouse.

But on the other hand... if I say No, he might still leave me forever. Or worse, he might do something drastic. Leven has to go on, for his family's sake. And if marrying me is one of the ways I can ensure he does that... so be it.

I nod. "Yes." And I peck his lips chastely. "But no children," I whisper into his mouth. That is the one principle I will not budge on. Wives become pregnant and become mothers of babies. Babies who grow up to become children to be Reaped for their death in arenas. And the rare Victor who does have children pretty much guarantees their progeny a spot in the Games anyhow. I've seen it happen before; to the Capitol, it's ratings gold. No child of mine and Leven's will ever know the inside of an arena.

I fear that Leven might insist - after all, the Mellark line would die with him otherwise - but instead, he merely smiles. "That won't be a problem. I'm... defective. Sterile."

I blink at him in utter astonishment. He never told me that. To be Defective is a heavy cloud to hold over your head in District 12. I don't know how such a status is determined, probably through a medical procedure that is even out of my mother's jurisdiction. What I do know is that Defectives who are unwanted and have proven themselves to be useless by the age of 21 (unless they have been Reaped for the Hunger Games even earlier - many Reapings have been rigged, or attempted to be rigged, to ensure that Defectives go in. My mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, was a Defective) are sent to the Justice Building to die by lethal injection. Leven likely escaped this fate because, being the eldest Mellark son, he was next in line to inherit his father's Bakery, become a prominent businessman. This is all the more reason for me to marry him. If Leven were to have at the very least a wife, if not a family, he would not be taken from me so easily. Plus, the Bakery has to be rebuilt.

This revelation gives me great comfort actually. I can have sex with my husband-to-be freely, and without protection, and there is no chance that I will fall pregnant. I kiss Leven deeply again. Then, taking his hand, we rush back to my house in the Seam to tell Mother and Prim the news.

* * *

Staring into the mirror, I let Mother pin up the rest of hair in the signature braid running down my back. Adorned in my blue Reaping dress, we both stare at my reflection in the mirror. I will be wearing this dress to the Justice Building to sign the marriage license and legally become Mrs. Leven Mellark.

"Now you look beautiful too," Mother tells me softly. Her face is flat, but I can tell she is ecstatic that the daughter she once thought would never marry is going to become a wife after all.

"I wish I looked like you," Prim expresses from where she is seated on the settee.

I smile. "You will get married soon enough, Little Duck. Just wait until Rory Hawthorne Toasts the bread with you."

Prim flushes scarlet at the mention of her crush.

Toasting the bread is the marriage tradition in District 12. After signing the papers at the Justice Building and being assigned a house, the married couple crosses the threshold of their new home, toast a piece of bread by the fireplace and share it, sealing it with a kiss. No one in Twelve feels married without this ritual.

Mother and Prim accompany me to the Justice Building. Leven is already dressed in a nice button-down and slacks. We stand before the Chief Clerk and sign our names to the license. Then, Mother and Prim help me change into Mother's white bridal gown. She married my father in this dress. And someday, Prim will get married in this dress.

Until the Bakery is rebuilt, Leven and I will be living with Mother and Prim. So, it is across my family's threshold that Leven now carries me. We stoke up the fire, and Leven toasts the bread over the meager flames, as only a Baker can. We share the slice, and then Leven pulls me into his arms.

I am only nervous for a moment, tentatively fearful over embarking on this new shared life together, before Leven's lips seal over mine and he kisses me. My hands gently cup his face and I relax, tenderly kissing him back.

Behind us, Prim dutifully applauds. Mother is wiping at her eyes, and I find myself very touched that she would get so emotional over my wedding.

* * *

Leven and I rebuild the Bakery and re-open. We have sex nearly every single night, and do not even bother to be quiet about it for the sake of the neighbors. Not once do I ever fall pregnant. I do not mind. It can be just Leven and me. Just us.

The only hard time of the year is every summer, when I have to go mentor for the Games. There hasn't been a District 12 winner yet since I triumphed in the 3rd Quarter Quell - an arena filled with previous Victors. And I am the only living Victor of District 12, so mentoring both tributes is my job, which makes it all the harder. But my husband is supportive, sending me off on the train with a care package of baked goods and a deep kiss goodbye.

It is hard, but we make it work. I find myself enjoying married life. To be a Victor, and a Baker's wife. It is not too terrible an existence.


End file.
